When I was driving down the seawall yesterday,
I saw two rather strange sights. The
first that caught my eye was a baby stroller.
Not that unusual. It was a
beautiful day. But the problem was, all
I could see was the stroller. And it was
moving. As I got closer I was able to
make out the source of its forward momentum.
There was indeed a baby in it, and there was someone pushing it. A small human being (couldn’t tell the age,
just the height) riding on a skateboard provided the propulsion power. Interesting.
The second sight was a guy fully into his
morning jog, decked out in all his jogging suit attire. Quite the fashion plate. And it was certainly not at all unusual for a
jogger to be taking advantage of the seawall.
But there was something draped over his shoulder. Again I was intrigued, and as I passed him I could
see what it was. He had a Chihuahua draped
over his shoulder that was dressed in some kind of doggy jogging outfit. It just sat there, bouncing up and down with
every stride. Now that was weird.
So begins the summer season on Galveston
Island
And so goes round one of the chaplain
introductions. Yesterday I met the A
Shift fire fighters. Pretty good group
of guys. Now I know there is at least
one woman in the department. I have seen
her name on some paperwork, but she wasn’t with that shift. So, as I said, a pretty good group of
guys. They seemed very pleased to have
access to a chaplain, and they even had some pretty good ideas about what I
needed to make me feel a part of the team.
The two things they seemed to think I desperately needed were
credentials (some kind of badge or ID to show my connection to the department)
and a uniform (or several uniforms, worn at the appropriate times like they
have to. They have strict requirements
about when they can wear their t-shirt or their polo or their dress uniform. The battalion chief who was showing me around
said he thought it would be no problem to get me a white polo shirt like the
one he was wearing). That all matched up
with the idea the assistant chief had when I met with him and the fire chief a
few weeks ago. They were both in a
hurricane readiness meeting, though, so I didn’t get to ask them about it. I did send an email. Sounded like a lot of their inter-department communication
takes place that way. The battalion chief
even said I should make a copy of his business card, scratch out his name and
put my information on it, then email a copy to the assistant chief. Sounded good to me, so I put that as an
attachment. I guess I’ll see how that
goes today or tomorrow when I meet with the other two shifts.
Psalms 81:1-2 says, “Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! Begin
the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre.”
Father, keep the guys on all three shifts
safe. And bring on the unusual people
that make our tourist seasons so interesting.
Amen.
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